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NHS England has confirmed its patient data managed by blood test management organisation Synnovis was stolen in a ransomware attack on 3 June.Qilin, a Russian cyber-criminal group, shared almost 400GB of private information on their darknet site on Thursday night, something they threatened to do in order to extort money from Synnovis.
In a statement, NHS England said there is “no evidence” that test results have been published, but that “investigations are ongoing”.
“Patients should continue to attend their appointments unless they have been told otherwise and should access urgent care as they usually would,” NHS England said.A sample of the stolen data seen by the BBC includes patient names, dates of birth, NHS numbers and descriptions of blood tests, something cyber security expert Ciaran Martin told the BBC was "one of the most significant and harmful cyber attacks ever in the UK.
"There are also business account spreadsheets detailing financial arrangements between hospitals and GP services and Synnovis being taken.
The ransomware hackers infiltrated the computer systems of the company, which is used by two NHS trusts in London, and encrypted vital information making IT systems useless.As is often the case with cyber-criminals, they also downloaded as much private data as they could to further extort the company for a ransom payment in Bitcoin.It is not known how much money the hackers demanded from Synnovis or if the company entered negotiations.
But the fact Qilin has published some, potentially all, of the data means they did not pay.The cyber-attackers told the BBC on an encrypted messaging service they had deliberately targeted Synnovis as a way to punish the UK for not helping enough in an unspecified war.In NHS England’s statement it said it “continues to work with Synnovis and the National Crime Agency”.NHS England said it had set up a helpline to support people impacted by the attack and it will continue to share updates, but “investigations of this type are complex and take time”.
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The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC), which was responsible for purchasing and delivering Covid PPE, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.The Labour Party described the contract as a “staggering waste” while the Liberal Democrats said it was a “colossal misuse of public funds”.
Full Support Healthcare agreed a £1.78bn deal in April 2020 to deliver face masks, respirators, eye protection and aprons - the largest Covid PPE order from a single supplier, accounting for 13% of the government’s total spend.Before the pandemic, the company, which was already a specialist manufacturer of PPE, had 25 employees and annual profits of £800,000, external.Any profits since the contract was fulfilled are not known because in 2021 the co-directors, Sarah Stoute, 50, and her husband Richard, 53, based the business offshore in Jersey for privacy reasons.They and the company continue to pay all UK tax.
“It is staggering waste and I think we need a full and frank account as to how so much public money was thrown down the toilet,” he said.The BBC contacted the DHSC and the Conservative Party several times with no reply to set out our findings and ask a number of questions.In an earlier statement the government said it had “acted swiftly to procure PPE at the height of the pandemic, competing in an overheated global market where demand massively outstripped supply”.
Sarah Stoute, a former nurse, set up Full Support Healthcare in 2001 in Wellingborough and her husband became a director three years later.As experienced providers of PPE during previous pandemics, they moved quickly to boost supply as Coronavirus took hold in late 2019.Under an existing arrangement with the NHS, their company won two DHSC purchase orders, including one for £1.78bn, for face masks and other items.Speaking at the time, external, Mrs Stoute said volumes of their product, shipped from China, increased from “eight sea freight containers every month to 800”.In a post on X, then known as Twitter, in October 2020 she wrote that her “team of 25 people” supplied “one fifth of the PPE national stockpile”.She added: “I’ve paid a few people’s mortgages off this last few weeks.”Afterwards, Mrs Stoute and her husband bought a £30m seafront villa in Barbados; a yacht; a £6m house in the south of England and an international equestrian centre in Bedfordshire.Giving evidence to the Public Accounts Committee in 2021, she said they “risked everything as a company and went into mass production with no security at all”.
Lawyers representing the Stoutes said: “Full Support Healthcare stock arrived quickly by summer 2020, much earlier than most and in larger quantities.“It had either a two- or three-year shelf life.
Full Support was in no way responsible for the stockpile.The company’s lawyers said the Stoutes were only made aware of the volume of unused stock when the BBC told them.They said it was a matter for the government who had not contacted them at any stage about it.Four years since the first national lockdown in England and Wales, the DHSC continues to store and dispose of billions of items of excess PPE at a cost of millions of pounds a week.
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